Right here, right now

Some of the things occupying my mind and time at the moment:

• V is sick AGAIN! He had a stomach bug end of October and was sent home from the creche on the Tuesday and spent the rest of the week at home with me and little E. I was chasing him to change his diaper every time there had been “an explosion”… I can think of more fun things to do! He now has a terrible cold and an eye infection, which means that he won’t go to the creche this week at all.
• I have just realised that with V’s sick absences plus the fact that we will be in Sweden the second half of November plus two public holidays, the three (hopefully) days he will actually be at the creche next week will cost us 200 EUR per day (as we pay 600 EUR / month)!! I can think of more fun things to spend that money on but oh well… If he had been at a public creche, we would only have had to pay for the days we used.
• O came home before 19.30 yesterday – that’s early! He is extremely busy at the moment, finishing a project that will “go live” this weekend. I am really hoping that he will work a little less / shorter days in the future.
• V seems to be teething again, he is constantly with his fingers in his mouth and drooling like crazy!
• I am coming down with a cold as well now and little E has had a bit of a stuffy nose for the last few days.
• Little E turned two months on Tuesday and had a check-up at the local children’s health care centre: she weighs 4,650 kg and measures 56 cm. The doctor was impressed with how much she smiles and observes, her strong neck and that she is so calm (“Madame, it shows that you are calm and that is why the baby is calm” – they haven’t seen me get annoyed with her big brother…). She also got her first vaccinations and only cried for a short while. She had a bit of a temperature during the night following the injections but wouldn’t take the [liquid] paracetamol (and we didn’t have suppositories for her weight).
• O and V went to Spain for the All Saints’ long weekend last week and V came home saying “huevo” for eggs (he used to call them [gi]!?) and “pintar” (draw / paint) which is his new favourite activity. He also looks me deep in the eyes and pinches my cheek – I wonder if he learnt that from his Spanish grandparents?
• One of O’s brothers and his German wife are coming to visit us from Munich tomorrow. It’s another long weekend as Monday is a public holiday in Belgium (11th November is Armistice day (World War I)).
• The weather has finally turned and after a wonderful beautiful autumn it is now grey and rainy. I don’t really mind, at least not when we have to stay indoors anyway because of V being ill.
• I finally bought a double stroller, after lots of research online and looking at several options IRL, I settled for the double Maclaren Techno. It is not ideal as both children are facing forward and I would have preferred to see little E but there is a small “window” in the hood so that I can check on her and she can lie completely flat which is great. I will only use the stroller to go to pick up V from the creche and for that it serves its purpose.
• We only have three weekends left in Brussels this year. As I said, we are going to Sweden for the second half of November and on the 19th December we will head to Spain for Christmas. We are driving to Spain over two days and I have booked the same Ibis hotel by Futuroscope outside Poitiers where we stayed on our way home from Spain at Easter. It is half-way between Brussels and Zaragoza, just by the motorway, and has a nice breakfast buffet!
• O and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary last Thursday (yes, Halloween) but the boys were going to Spain in the afternoon so we didn’t have the time to really celebrate. However, O went to buy “couques” (Belgian French word for “breakfast pastries” such as croissants, pains au chocolat etc) and we had a nice breakfast together. Last year we were in Spain and O’s sister babysat V and we went to a nice restaurant in Zaragoza called “Bula”.

Little E is 6 weeks

Little E is 6 weeks old already and I really should blog more often!

Maybe you are interested in why we named her E? Well, my maternal grandmother had the same name and as she sadly passed away just before Christmas 2010, I wanted to honour her by naming our daughter after her. What is interesting is that my grandmother (1922 – 2010) and little E are not the only ones in my family with this name:

• my grandmother was named after her paternal grandmother, i.e my great-great grandmother, who lived 1844 – 1919.
• the wife of my great-great-great-grandfather (1821 – 1869).
• and my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother (1814 – 1841).

Also, on my grandmother’s mother’s side there were at least two E’s and that is just in my mother’s family! I know that on my father’s side there have been plenty of E’s as well. When searching the family tree a few years ago I came across one ancestor who was married to two E’s, not at the same time mind you.   😉

According to the family records, the E’s on my grandmother’s paternal side spelt their names with double l, while on the maternal side the name was spelt with one l. We chose to spell the name with double l, just like my grandmother’s name.

Name trivia & statistics (from svenskanamn.se):

• Origin of the name – a Swedish short version of “Helena” (Helen / Hélène / Elena) which is Greek for “torch”.
• E with one l: 5297 women in Sweden, and out of those, 1631 live in Skåne, my region, and 683 in Stockholm…
• E with double l: 33 women in Sweden, 23 of them in Skåne, and out of those 23 women there are 4 in both Trelleborg & Kristianstad and 3 in my hometown Eslöv.
• In other words, it is a typical name from Skåne that is not that popular in the rest of the country!
• However, it is also the name of a Swiss sewing machine brand!

A shop in Brussels has the same name as our daughter!

Baby’s officially overdue!

Who would have thought it, but yep, the baby’s officially overdue since yesterday! Not much under normal circumstances but considering that V was born at 36 weeks and that I was put on medical leave on the 21st May due to a short cervix, it is pretty amazing! But it’s like my doctor and I have concluded – pregnancy is NOT an exact science and the doctors can’t really explain why this baby has decided to not come out yet! Don’t get me wrong, I am really pleased that we will have a full term baby! Here are some thoughts on “due date +1” (BF +1):

– I have had my membranes swept twice – first last Monday and then again yesterday. Ouch! and so far, no result…

– I had “a show” (slempropp) last Tuesday & Wednesday. Euck! and no result…

– I am 3 – 3,5 cm open since last Monday… and nothing!

– I could have opted for the choice of being induced from my due date (i.e yesterday) but unlike many Belgian women (according to my English doctor*), I prefer waiting. If the baby hasn’t decided to come out, it’s for a reason – not being ready!

– In Belgium they let you wait one week after the due date before inducing – which would mean on V’s birthday next Tuesday! Nooooo, that just can’t happen! I want the two siblings to at least have separate birthdays even thought they will have them in the same week as their paternal grandfather (7th) and their father (12th). 😦

– I weighed myself in the hospital yesterday – weight gain a little less than 8 kgs. With V I only gained 3 kgs but that was because I got gestational diabetes and wasn’t allowed any carbs the last month (plus delivered at 36 weeks of course) – I wouldn’t recommend it (I was super hungry!)…

– Check-ups every two days now until next Tuesday. It is amazing how thorough they are in Belgium! In Sweden I think you get a check-up once per week also when you are overdue and they induce around 2 weeks after the due date (in some regions 17 days!!).

– One good thing about this baby not being born yet – the newly renovated maternity ward was opened last week with more private rooms (which I have the right to with my medical insurance!).

The flowers on the balcony are still beautiful

– One sligthly bad thing: we are planning to fly to Sweden on the 19th September – a bit too close to the birth now, especially if the baby decides to not arrive before next week.

– Yesterday morning I woke up (or rather lay awake the whole night) with a cold and a sore throat – not ideal not feeling 100% when due to give birth within the next few days!

– Brussels is experiencing a late summer heat wave – temperatures of 29-31 degrees predicted for the next few days! It was really hot when I gave birth to V and boy, was I thirsty – and I didn’t get anything to drink 😦 (security measure in case you need an emergency caesarian, which I don’t understand because Swedish women get both food and beverages while in labour!?)

Every morning I stand on the balcony and wave goodbye to V and O when they leave for the creche / office. V still insists on wearing his wellies despite the heat so I have actually started to hide them 😉

*) However, yesterday at the hospital I overheard a discussion between a woman and her doctor where the doctor said that she had to have an induction this Thursday and she was trying to negotiate not having one yet. Apparently the doctor was worried about the placenta (and she had had some kind of accident?) so he told her to come to the hospital tomorrow evening for the preparations.

Another Virgo

I don’t really believe in star signs, but I am surrounded by Virgos. Both O and V were born in September as well as my father-in-law, and even if the new baby decides to arrive in August, it will be another Virgo in the family. I read on a blog that Virgos are “försynta” = considerate* / discreet and are interested in storage. Hm, O and V are definitely considerate but not at all discreet, and it is true that O is obsessed by storage – in our already out-grown apartment that lacks exactly that!

We had my brother, fiancee and 5-month old son M visiting this past weekend and V really showed his considerate side towards the baby (“bébé” as he called him). He wanted to be close-by all the time, help M when the dummy fell out of his mouth, cuddle and the sweetest – he tried to get kisses from the baby: he would put his face close to M’s face, the way he does when we kiss him! Sometimes he would get a lick in the face from baby M 🙂 I hope that he will be as considerate when our baby has arrived!

Our new neighbours, my fellow blogger Anna and her family, have arrived! They are renting our friends’ apartment while they are back in Sweden having their second child. It is the same apartment that we lived in for 9 months last year before deciding to buy a place in the same building! Anna and her husband have two kids, their daugther I is 9 months older than V and H was born in February this year. We are hoping that V and I will become friends, their first meeting was on Sunday at the playground and well, that first contact was a bit tentative – mostly fighting over using the buggy board on H’s pram!

*) I wouldn’t have translated “försynt” as “considerate” but that’s from a Swedish-English dictionary!

Nesting?

No baby yet! Since V was born at 36 weeks and I am now at 38 weeks (tomorrow), and I have been on medical leave since end of May, it feels like this baby is overdue… which of course is not the case! It could be another two, or even three weeks more. In Belgium they induce labour earlier than in Sweden, one week overdue vs at least two weeks, I think in most Swedish regions.

Last time around, when I was pregnant with V, I wrote a post about the lack of nesting and the day after he was born! So, I was thinking that maybe this baby would also be curious about the outside world if I wrote about nesting? But what have I / we done in terms of nesting?

– Already when my parents were here in July, my mother and I sorted out the baby clothes and re-arranged them size-wise.

– I also packed my and the baby’s bags in July and O has been driving around with them in the car ever since.

– My sister was here last week and we did some more sorting of the wardrobes, including V’s (outgrown clothes packed away)

– O defrosted and cleaned the fridge and freezer yesterday – his way of nesting?

– I have been trying to catch up on my diary writing before the birth. For V’s first 1,5 years I kept a regular diary but around the time of the nausea of this pregnancy kicking in, end of January, I started being sloppy. I try to at least write down what has happened in his development and life each month and I try to remember to take a photo of him every 10th of the month. I also have kept a parallel pregnancy diary for the new baby.

– And today I continued on the quilt project for the baby. I cut all the patchwork squares when my parents were here, and then my mother took them home to do the zig-zag stitching as my sewing machine broke down. My sister brought them back and today I arranged them in the pattern I wanted. I have borrowed a sewing machine from a friend but it’s a different brand from the one I am used to, so I will see if I will have the courage to use it! There is usually a lot of swearing and desperation around when I sew so if on top of that I have to use a different machine, hm… 😕

Of course I realised that I was one yellow square short…

There are a few people who are worried about when the baby will arrive:

– My blog friend Anna and her family who are moving to Brussels this week and who will be our neighbours! Her husband is arriving by car on Thursday and is supposed to get the keys to the apartment from us. They are crossing their fingers that I won’t be in labour at that exact time!

– My brother, his girlfriend and their baby son M who is 5 months old are arriving on Friday afternoon, so they are also hoping that we won’t be at the hospital right at that moment! I have written a long and detailed email with directions how to take the bus and metro from the airport to our home (and then they can pick up the keys from our new neighbours!).

– Not so worried, but more excited, is our American friend who has promised to babysit V if the baby decides to arrive in the evening / night! Her daughter is one of V’s friends and they would have their first “sleep-over party” if this happens!

Utmana ödet?

Nu har jag:

– bytt lakan
– bokat färgtid hos frissan på onsdag morgon
– bokat en husvisning på lördag

Innebär det att:
1) vattnet kommer att gå i sängen – snart?
2) jag kommer att föda före lördag / onsdag?

I så fall måste jag bara komma ihåg att boka av de där bokningarna…

Problemet är bara att:
1) Vår barnvakt jobbar åt en annan familj på fredagar och alla våra kompisar jobbar ju så vi undviker helst en förlossning under dagtid fredag
2) vårt första barnvaktsalternativ för kvällar och nätter plus helger är bortrest den här helgen så gärna ingen action till helgen. Vi har en annan vän på stand-by men hon råkar även vara hundvakt den här helgen så hon har ganska fullt upp!

V föddes i vecka 36 + 1, dvs IDAG om samma skulle ske i den här graviditeten! Vi träffade doktorn i måndags och efter att O insisterat på någonslags estimering sa han att han trodde på en vecka till… Naturligtvis kan han inte lova något, graviditeter är after all INTE en exakt vetenskap!

Vi är i alla fall glada att det inte blev en julibaby! Och doktorn sa också, som vi redan förstått, att V var ett undantag – de allra flesta barn som föds i vecka 36 kan andas utan hjälp, så vi hoppas på det om det skulle bli förlossning den här veckan…

Min syster kommer på måndag så nästa vecka är det fritt fram att titta ut, hör du det, lillasyster*?

*) I måndags innan vi träffade min gyn hade vi ett “tillväxt-ultraljud” och jag fick ett sms efteråt från min mor “är det fortfarande en flicka?” – opps, glömde fråga! Samma dag fick jag ett meddelande från en bloggkompis: “tänkte bara skrämma dig lite och berätta att min kompis som trodde hon skulle få en flicka fick en kille idag! Fast de hade bara varit på ett UL så er tjej är nog ett säkrare kort!” Nu har ju visserligen tre andra läkare sagt att det är en flicka men man vet ju aldrig! Och huvudsaken ÄR ju att barnet är friskt men det hade varit lite snopet med en pojke eftersom vi är inställda på en flicka och framförallt – NAMN??? Vi har ju som sagt bara en vecka på oss att registrera namnet (rättare sagt födseln men namnet måste vara bestämt då) här i Belgien…

Första förlossningen

Jag tror inte att jag någonsin skrev ner min första förlossningsberättelse och eftersom den andra förlossningen närmar sig med stormsteg, eller nja, tiden går inte fort nog för min smak – jag hade gärna varit i vecka 37 nu istället för precis vecka 35 (34+0)… Men eftersom jag läser preggopreggo-bloggen, skriven av två gravida tjejer i Sverige och de efterlyste förlossningsberättelser så skrev jag ihop ett “litet” inlägg som inte fick plats som kommentar på deras blogg, man får visst bara skriva 4096 tecken:

Här kommer min förlossningsberättelse:
Jag var ju sjukskriven sedan ca vecka 24 pga kort livmoderhals, precis som den här gången (bf 3/9) och tog det extremt lugnt hela sommaren men den 9 september 2011 (vecka 36) började jag slappna av lite, flytta lite flyttkartonger och “boa”… På kvällen blödde jag ytterst lite och på morgonen därpå “knäppte” det till och vattnet gick i sängen när vi låg och sov (jag hade varit uppe 2 timmar tidigare och tagit den sista progesteron-tabletten!). Det kändes som om det forsade men det gjorde det nog inte, bara två små blöta fläckar på madrassen. Jag väckte O som direkt var redo för action och frågade vad jag ville att han skulle göra. Jag svarade att det visste jag inte men jag ville iaf tvätta håret 😀 Han gjorde frukostgröt som vi åt i godan ro och sedan körde vi till sjukhuset. Då hade jag regelbundna värkar och det var ganska obekvämt i bilen och när vi kom fram insåg jag att vattnet fortsatt att rinna så jag (och sätet) var alldeles blöt (trots stor binda).

Det var väldigt lugnt på förlossningsavdelningen (vi bor ju i Bryssel och inte i Sverige där det alltid verkar vara kris i förlossningsvården…) och vi fick nästan 100%-ig uppmärksamhet av samma barnmorska under hela värkarbetet. Min gyn (man går hos en gyn, inte barnmorska under graviditeten och det är han / hon som förlöser en) råkade vara bortrest den helgen så vi fick klara oss utan henne. Först fick jag frågan om jag ville ha en epidural och jag svarade “jag vet inte” (ha ha, snacka om totalt oförberedd, inget förlossningsbrev här inte och det har jag fortfarande inte, litar på att sjukvården och jag kommer fram till vad som är bäst för just den här förlossningen). BM menade att jag var så pass öppen att om jag ville uppleva att föda “naturligt” så var det min chans nu, så jag sa ok… Jag satt mest på en pilatesboll under värkarbetet, och vi hade vissa planer på att bada men när badkaret var fullt med vatten var jag så långt gången att BM sa att jag skulle föda i vattnet om jag hoppade i. Det var jag lite tveksam till (varför?) så jag skippade badet, däremot ville jag gärna ha den där epiduralen DÅ men nix, då var det för sent 😉

När krystvärkarna kom försökte BM och min man få upp mig i sängen men det gick absolut inte att ligga på rygg för mig så jag fick förslaget att stå på knäna, luta mig på en liten pilatesboll och sitta på en större i sängen. Varje gång en krystvärk kom, tog BM bort den stora bollen. Det kändes som jag krystade i minst en timme (ingen aning om det var så men det var läääänge iaf) och jag var så himla törstig. Jag blev bara baddad i pannan med en ljummen tvättlapp och jag blev riktigt irriterad på min man för att jag inte fick någon svalka (det var en varm septemberdag)! Jag har efteråt fått veta att de ofta INTE ger en mat eller dryck i Belgien för om uti fall att man måste sövas för snitt. Jag ska minsann ha med mig vatten nästa gång! Och så glad att jag åt gröt innan vi åkte hemifrån för jag fick inte mat förrän vid 19/20-tiden på kvällen (V föddes kl 14.05)!!

På slutet trodde jag att jag skulle gå av på mitten och nej, folk säger att man glömmer smärtan men det har jag INTE gjort och det oroar mig (det blir ev epidural den här gången OM det blir tid till det) och varje gång BM sa till mig att “bara en krystning till” kände jag mig så lurad för han kom ju inte UT! Vid ett tillfälle trodde jag att jag TÄNKTE att “nä, nu skiter jag i det här, nu vill jag inte vara med” – men O har berättat att jag faktiskt sa det rakt ut! Men ut kom vår fina lille son (4,5 timme efter att vattnet hade gått), och själva känslan när han “slank ut” var obeskrivligt… otäck! Det var liksom som ja, han slank ut, så där slemmigt så det kändes som det lät “slurp”. Ingen jag har pratat med om det här har förstått vad jag menar men så upplevde jag det!? Jag blev sydd med 3-4 stygn medan O och jag tittade på det lilla underverket (som såg ut som en alien och det kommer jag ihåg att jag sa högt!) i min famn, det var så overkligt! Sedan väntade vi på moderkakan som aldrig kom ut så jag kördes iväg till en operationssal där jag fick en ryggmärgsbedövning så att jag inte kände någonting från midjan och neråt och de drog ut den manuellt. När de skulle sätta bedövningen var jag tvungen att sitta upp och då sa det bara plask och en hel pöl med blod rann ut på golvet framför mig – “det är ingen fara” sa de till mig… Jag fick en rejäl eftervärk precis när de satte bedövningen så jag tror att jag bet eller iaf dreglade rejält på den manliga sjuksköterskan som höll i mig! Efteråt fick jag ligga på ett allmänt uppvak tills jag kunde känna mina ben igen vilket tog ca 2h. Jag bara låg där och var superduperHUNGRIG, TÖRSTIG och LEDSEN för jag visste varken var min son eller O var 😦 Som tur var letade O upp mig och kom för att prata med mig en stund innan han gick upp till vår son igen som hamnat på neonatalavdelningen pga andningssvårigheter. Till slut fick jag också träffa honom och det var alldeles underbart!

V hade CPAP / andningspump i en vecka och sedan stannade vi kvar en vecka till innan vi åkte hem. Jag vägrade nämligen att åka hem utan honom så jag fick stanna kvar på en speciell neo-avdelning där föräldrar kan vara med sina barn efter att jag blev utskriven från BB. Man stannar generellt 5 dagar på BB i Belgien, iaf med första barnet.

Överhuvudtaget var förlossningen lite av en “out-of-body experience” för mig men ändå ganska positiv. O och jag har pratat om att vi egentligen inte hade några förväntningar – jag menar, HUR kan man förvänta sig något som man aldrig varit med om förut och som man faktiskt inte kan kontrollera? Nu inför andra förlossningen hoppas vi bara att det går lika bra som med första… Personligen tror jag att förlossningsbrev är lite för att invagga kvinnor i någon falsk trygghet att de ska kunna kontrollera förlossningen. Jag har hört och läst om så många kvinnor som blev besvikna för att det inte blev som de hade tänkt sig. Min personliga åsikt är att så länge barnet kommer ut friskt och välskapt så kan man väl inte bli besviken? Är det inte nämligen huvudsaken??

Mother’s day confusion

Mother’s day is not a big deal in my family, nor in O’s family (where no special days are special – not even birthdays!) but we would at least wish my mother “Happy Mother’s day” and maybe she (!) would make a cake. A Friday end of April I noticed that the newspaper Metro, which I don’t usually read on the metro but always see the front page on the copies read by fellow passengers in the metro in the mornings, had an ad mentioning la fête des mères, I thought that it could be a nice occassion to invite our friends and neighbours C & J for a “Mother’s day fika”.

On the Sunday V and I went to the bakery and bought a lovely tarte au frangipane, and I took out my “Mother’s day 1975”-plate (flea market find from last summer). We had a really nice fika together, little M came dressed up in her cute Spanish red boots (gift from us) and V refused to take off his hat (2nd Sunday in a row when we had friends over that he insisted on wearing it indoors!)…

The following Sunday, 5th May, O announced that it was Mother’s day in Spain and I had a nagging feeling that it was the same in Belgium! So, I sent a message to our friends saying that “Opps, sorry but apparently I was mistaken last Sunday but we had a nice fika anyway, didn’t we”. Like most Sundays V and O went to the bakery to buy some “couques” (Belgian French for croissants, pains au chocolat etc), and they came home with this flyer: Moederdag on the 12th May?? Could it be that the Flemish have another Mother’s day than the French-speaking Belgians? Everything is possible in this country!!

Another rectifying text message to our friends who had probably started (?) to think that I was a little Mother’s day crazy… Later on during the day O invited them over for melon and ice cream (and beer!), celebrating Spanish Mother’s day!

When discussing the whole thing with my Belgian colleagues (who don’t have children) on the Monday after, we concluded that it was Mother’s day for the whole of Belgium (also the German part??) on the 12th May! That Sunday we were in Sweden and of course didn’t celebrate Mother’s day (but I read all the Facebook messages of friends in Belgium wishing mothers “Happy Mother’s day”).

And yesterday, it was Swedish Mother’s day and we didn’t do anything special except V and O went to buy our Sunday couques, and then they cleaned the whole apartment while I was relaxing on the sofa! Quite an ok day, and hey, we had celebrated Mother’s day twice already!

My mother became a mother for the first time in 1975 when I was born – but I was born AFTER Mother’s day that year 😉

Moral of the story: get your dates right from the beginning (and don’t trust ads in Metro), or not, this way we got to celebrate several times…

A family affair: Ascension weekend in Sweden

My only chance of spending some time in Sweden this spring / summer was last weekend, which was a long weekend for most Europeans. We were looking forward to spending time with my family and to meet M, V’s new cousin! My parents, my siblings and I decided that it was time for a family weekend at the summer house!

Before departure at Brussels airport: We thought that letting V run around would tire him enough to sleep on the flight… nope! Not even the car ride back to my parents’ place made him fall asleep! He eventually crashed with us at midnight. Oh well, he is after all half-Spanish!

Two boys who were completely oblivious to the cameras… We had waffles elevenses (elvakaffe) with my parents’ former neighbours and their son O, one of my best friends, and his family from Norway. Their daughter is 5 days older than V but she was having a nap while the boys were playing with the tractor!

V wasn’t too impressed with the swing my parents put up for him 😦 In Brussels it is almost impossible to find a baby swing in a playground for some reason!

The old beach toys!

But what are some plastic toys to a 20-month old boy who loves REAL POWER TOOLS? My father and O spent two days building a fence and a gate to keep the new family members inside the garden, and guess who wanted to help!

I guess it would have been quicker if not one of the two carpenters always had to keep the little assistant from assisting too much…

I wonder if the kitchen utensils will be as fun next summer as they were now and last summer?

Wow! Grand-dad connected the tv to youtube so that V could watch “El vals del ocho” with Miliki on the big screen! O doesn’t think that it is too early to start with the multiplication table 😉 and V loves the song (waltz?) of the number eight!

I finally finished my present to my nephew M who turned 7 weeks last weekend! A quilt in green and white…

Some of the patches: the old shirt of Brysselkakan’s son, the curtain fabric of SunnySwede’s son’s bedroom in England, my parents’ first curtains in our first home, my paternal grandmother’s napkins with her initial, an old shirt of mine, a nd some of the fabrics that my aunt used to make a quilt for my sister as a baby (+ various new fabrics)

A little pulling help from daddy – uncle D’s old car!

Good morning! V woke up at 05.30 every morning as we slept in the living room with too many windows to cover up from the early Scandinavian summer morning sun… O, V and my mother walked to the beach to play in the sand while the rest of us got to sleep in (maybe not so much the new parents in the guest house!?)

The turban was not a hit with V! I had just bought a new cap and a sun hat but of course we forgot them up at the house…

The Baltic Sea! There were actually sunbathers on the beach and some kids playing in the water!

The traditional ice cream stop at the kiosk!

Before heading back to the summer house to pack the bags and start to say goodbye…

A knackered boy after a long weekend full of attention and playing with the Swedish family! In the evening we went to Copenhagen and V was once again full of energy again until we all went to bed at 23. We got up at 04.30 to catch the metro to the airport and he slept the whole flight back to Brussels. Too bad that we still haven’t received our suitcases due to the 4-day long baggage handlers’ strike at Brussels airport!

Our little table climber…

I think that I will go crazy!!! V’s new favourite thing is to climb up on the table and I say “nej!” (no in Swedish), take him down and try to distract him probably 20 times per evening! He has also started to say “no” while he does it… Terrible two’s, here we go! He will turn 20 months on the 10th May.

But he is also the sweetest little boy, who even though he gives most of his attention and hugs to his daddy, also cuddles with me (when O is not at home at least!), blows kisses and loves talking on the phone with his Spanish abuelos and on Skype with his Swedish mormor & morfar. He knows how to turn on the radio, increase the volume and starts to dance!

He loves reading his books about Pelle (Jan Lööf books) and the story about the red apple (Sagan om det röda äpplet) – a Swedish book that O very often reads in Spanish, I am impressed how he (O) manages to guess the story almost word for word thanks to the pictures!

He can take instructions in both Swedish and Spanish (and French at the creche), for example O will tell him to get his gorro (hat) or tonight when I told him to build a tower, he went straight to his room and did just that with his building blocks!

His active vocabulary might not be huge, which is understandable with 4 (FOUR!) languages around him but he asks for agua and pan (bread), banana he has abbreviated to ba, he says ja (yes), titta (look) and tittut (peek-a-boo) in Swedish as well as momma (mormor = grandmother in Swedish). And of course mamma and pappa, which is both Swedish and Spanish (practical!). He is extremely chatty but unfortunately we don’t understand everything he says.

The social bee loves hugging his girlfriends (we don’t know that many boys his age!), sharing sippy cups (despite our protests, exchanging of germs and viruses isn’t such a great idea, we think), picking daisies at the playground and say hello to dogs in the street. I am always on the lookout for dogs to show him that I find myself doing it when I am alone as well, ha ha!

Vacuum-cleaning, mopping the floor, playing with water in the sink and wiping the windows are favourites that I wonder where he gets them from – we definitely don’t like cleaning that much  😀

NB how his father has fenced in the balcony with a net, it wasn’t very child-safe before…

He can also create a real mess… NB Behind V there are 30 litres of Spanish olive oil (in the cardboard box + the two big yellow bottles) that we brought back from Spain!

He has periods when he refuses to go to sleep in the evenings but he sleeps through the night since he was probably around 6 months (more or less??). But usually his routine is to drink his bottle in bed and then fall asleep unaided. He might complain a little bit but most of the time he gets quiet within minutes, otherwise we will go in to see him and comfort him a little before we leave him to fall asleep on his own. He still sleeps in his crib in our room but that will change soon as somebody else is taking over the crib in a few months’ time. He usually sleeps between 20.00/21.00 – 7.00 / 8.00 (we keep him up until 21.00 on the weekends so we get to sleep longer in the mornings!) and has one nap during the day (1-2 hours).

Next weekend, Ascension weekend, we are off to Sweden to meet his first Swedish cousin and my first nephew, little M*. We can’t wait! A cosy family weeekend in the summer house by the Baltic sea is awaiting us!

*) you might remember that I have mentioned that V’s three Spanish cousins have names starting with M!? Well, now he has 4 cousins with names starting with M; plus his two grandmothers, his Spanish grandfather, an uncle and one aunt!